Former NDP leader Ed BroadbentBill Grimshaw
Last week, a radio host in the nation's capital asked Ed Broadbent what he thought of Richard Mahoney, the Liberal candidate running in Ottawa Centre, the riding he was vacating.
"He's nice. Richard is a very serious candidate," said Mr. Broadbent, outgoing NDP member of Parliament -- who was actually campaigning for Paul Dewar, the NDP candidate.
Nice? Serious? Why not call your competition liars, whores or traitors, as other MPs do? This was, after all, a year in which:
Stephen Harper accused Prime Minister Paul Martin of delaying a crucial no-confidence vote until two cancer-stricken Conservative MPs were too sick to participate.
Belinda Stronach dumped her party, voters and boyfriend to join the Liberals.
Her Conservative ex-colleagues then attacked her as a "dipstick," "whore" and "prostitute."
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Tory Gurmant Grewal taped a series of his own why-don't-you-cross-the-floor conversations with a carefully coy Liberal cabinet minister and the Prime Minister's chief of staff.
Liberal campaign literature shows Mr. Harper whispering suspiciously into the ear of Bloc Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe. Mr. Harper says the photo was taken at a Holocaust memorial service.
The Bloc and Tories paralyzed Parliament for three days to show their control over the House.
In a year that saw civility, decency and mutual respect hit a new low in Parliament, John Edward Broadbent is The Globe and Mail's Nation Builder of 2005. Because this was the year in which Mr. Broadbent:
Declared that he would abstain from a no-confidence vote so that a Tory MP would not have to drag himself to Ottawa following bladder-cancer surgery.
Declined to take credit for the gesture, suggesting that it was his party's decision rather than his own.
Focused his energies on the cause of electoral reform.
Quit his seat to care for his ailing wife, Lucille.
Farewell, Honest Ed, the best prime minister Canada never had. In an era of contemptuous, mean-spirited public discourse, Mr. Broadbent is an oxymoron -- a decent Canadian politician.
Sure, he has little charisma. And, sorry, he's 20 pounds overweight, has a comb-over and looks like a worn-out bulldog. Even his wife burst out laughing when a magazine once inexplicably chose him as one of Canada's sexiest men. "There are many good things I would call Ed," she said, "but sexy? No."
But he's definitely nice. And he's very serious. In his goodbye speech to the Commons in May, Mr. Broadbent said: "I have been here for the great debates of my time -- on the Constitution; on the national energy program; on the War Measures Act; on the recognition of Japanese Canadians, their place in history and our unpleasant, to put it euphemistically, treatment of them historically. Many debates went to the root of what this country is all about."
He also played his part in the abolition of capital punishment, the great abortion clashes and the recognition of same-sex marriage.
And imagine this: In the year of the Gomery inquiry into the Liberal sponsorship scandal, he is leaving office without the slightest whiff of scandal.
"People always say there're no honest politicians," says Lowell Green, a right-wing commentator in Ottawa, who holds the record for North America's longest-running talk show. "I say, 'What about Ed Broadbent?' That shuts them up."
The day Mr. Broadbent was leaving for Christmas holidays at the cottage with his wife, two adult children and four grandchildren, he sat in his Dijon mustard-yellow parliamentary office, down the hall from the one Ms. Stronach vacated when she crossed the floor. The radiator hissed. The phone beeped, and went unanswered. He had kicked off his shoes, exposing navy blue socks, his 5-foot-11-inch bulk reclining in a leather rocker.
The night before, he had dined with CBC Radio broadcaster Stuart McLean and then went to the National Arts Centre to watch Mr. McLean perform one of his Vinyl Café monologues. To his surprise, Mr. McLean ended the show with a tribute to Mr. Broadbent. The house lights went on. There was a standing ovation.
"I shouldn't say I'm getting tired of being seen as Mr. Decent," says Mr. Broadbent, who turns 70 in March. "And I wouldn't want this to be misunderstood. But I put it down to memory. I've been gone for 15 years. People forget what I was about -- a combative, aggressive leader of the NDP."
Indeed, at first he was ambitious in the worst sense of the word. At 35 and with a mere three years in Parliament under his belt, he decided to grab the brass ring. In the ensuing 1971 NDP leadership race, David Lewis kicked his butt. "I was a young academic who thought I was smarter than everyone else," he says.
The middle of three children, born during the Great Depression, he grew up in Oshawa, Ont. His father, Percy Edward Broadbent, a salesman, was an alcoholic and a gambler who lost his job, his car and the family home. "Mine was not a Norman Rockwell adolescence," Mr. Broadbent once said.
His dad ended up in a white-collar job at General Motors, which put him in a rehab program. He won't say more, not because it is too painful or too personal, but because he is loyal. "I find it difficult to criticize my father. I don't want to talk about my father in a negative way. By the time my dad died, he had substantially controlled the alcoholism and worked full-time."
Mr. Broadbent credits his social-democratic roots to his Irish-Catholic mother, Mary. "It wasn't what she told me. It was what she lived. She was generous and kind to all ethnic groups, Ukrainians, Poles. Some of the friends I brought home from university were black. There was never a twinge of racism."
And when, at 25, Ed brought home a Japanese-Canadian bride, they didn't flinch. "When we broke up, they felt the loss a lot. They were fond of her."
He was a Boy Scout and an Anglican choirboy. The latter experience produced a lifelong passion for Handel, Bach and opera. In high school, he attended a funny, fiery speech by Tommy Douglas, the NDP's first leader. When he won a Rotary Club trip to Ottawa, he was shown around Parliament by his local MP, Michael Starr, labour minister in the Diefenbaker government.
After graduating, on a full scholarship at the top of his class at the University of Toronto, he taught a year of high school in Oshawa to earn a bit of money. "I did say in the House that, if I were a high-school teacher now, I wouldn't bring my students to Question Period."
He returned to U of T, where he grew a beard, rode a motorcycle and married Yvonne Yamaoka, who was studying city planning. After he earned a master's degree in philosophy, they went to Europe so he could study at the London School of Economics. By 1968, he had obtained a PhD at the U of T and was teaching political science at York University. His eight-year marriage to Ms. Yamaoka was ending. He said yes when the NDP asked him to run in Oshawa-Whitby -- against Mr. Starr.
His nomination speech, in the union hall of the United Auto Workers, was long, windy and based on his doctoral thesis on John Stuart Mill. The fact that he wore tweeds and drove a Volvo didn't go over big, either. But his grandfather, father and brother had all worked at GM. And he told voters that while he wasn't about to sell his Volvo, he would certainly get a GM the next time around.
He won, after a recount, by 15 votes. A young widow with sparkling blue eyes had helped him campaign. "And one glorious thing led to another," he says, still beaming after 34 years of marriage.
The year Mr. Broadbent taught high school in Oshawa, Louis Monroe was a friend and colleague. Mr. Monroe died of a brain tumour in 1965, on his 35th birthday, leaving his wife, 29, and their five-year-old son, Paul.
Lucille Munroe was a Franco-Ontarian, addicted to cigarettes and brimming with idealism. She quit voting Liberal in 1964 after Lester Pearson allowed American nuclear warheads into Canada.
In Mr. Broadbent's office, there's a poster-size black-and-white photo of his instant family, taken soon after his 1971 marriage. Lucille is slim and chic, in a sleeveless dark sheath. Little Paul stands between them, in tie and sweater vest. The beaming MP sports sideburns and a stogie.
"It's my favourite picture," says Mr. Broadbent, who now drives a made-in-Oshawa 2003 silver Buick Regal. He still smokes cigars, currently Cuban-made Montecristo Number 4's. "They cost too much," he says, refusing to disclose the price. "They are, uh, $12 to $16 each," he says finally. (A random check with Comerford Cigar Store in Ottawa says they actually retail for $18.25. Maybe Fidel gives him a special price.)
They were in their mid-30s when they married, and Lucille was a year older. "We just couldn't have any children. It just didn't work." In 1974, they adopted a baby girl, Christine. In 1997, Mrs. Broadbent, whom he calls "the love of my life," was diagnosed with breast cancer. It spread. Chemotherapy is beating it back, but leaves her whacked.
She called his cellphone while he was doing the radio show. He called her back immediately, but got the machine. He left a message, calling her "dear," then phoned his former assistant to see if she had heard from Lucille. (She hadn't.) A former nurse and French-language teacher, Mrs. Broadbent has said she was attracted to her husband's idealism.
Today, they still argue about politics, sometimes deep into the night. He puts it simply: To her, everything is a matter of principle; to him, some things are just details. They didn't agree, for instance, on the morality of pursuing power.
"For Lucille, that's not something you speak of. For me, of course, that's desirable. All serious politics are about power. It's a totally legitimate goal."
But in his pursuit of power, certain things were not negotiable. Although 75 per cent of his constituents in Oshawa were for the death penalty, Mr. Broadbent voted for abolition. To sway fellow MPs, he sent each a copy of Albert Camus's passionate 1957 essay, Reflections on the Guillotine.
Other things were potentially negotiable. In 1980, Pierre Trudeau asked Mr. Broadbent to join his cabinet. He wanted support for his controversial national energy policy and for repatriating the Constitution. Mr. Broadbent bargained: He wanted six or seven other NDP members in the cabinet.
Mr. Trudeau agreed. But, fearing a loss of credibility, Mr. Broadbent ultimately declined. Now, a quarter-century later, his fingerprints are visible in the adroit way Jack Layton finessed Mr. Martin into accepting NDP-inspired changes to the budget.
In his political career, Mr. Broadbent staked out the centre of the party. At first, he had toyed with the Waffle movement, the party's radical wing. He even helped to draft its manifesto. But he backed off at the last minute. In 1979, he condemned Moscow when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. And he tried to persuade Fidel Castro to hold multiparty elections in Cuba.
By 1988, 36 per cent of voters thought that Mr. Broadbent would make the best prime minister. That compared with 19 per cent for Brian Mulroney and 13 per cent for John Turner. People began to contemplate a Canada led by Mr. Broadbent. That election, the NDP ended up with a record 43 seats. He now considers that election his biggest success: "I got Canadians to think of the NDP seriously."
But despite hard campaigning, the party hadn't won a single seat in Quebec. And its share of the popular vote had increased by just one point -- to 20 per cent. The next year, a frustrated Mr. Broadbent packed it in. He was 53, and had spent 20 years in the House of Commons, 15 as party leader.
After Mr. Broadbent quit in 1988, he taught at McGill and Queen's, and ran the International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development in Montreal. His wife thought that he should have stuck it out until the NDP won something in Quebec.
At the most recent leadership convention, Mrs. Broadbent disagreed with her husband again. She voted for Bill Blaikie, who had paid his dues and had been their friend forever. Mr. Broadbent supported Mr. Layton, a Toronto city councillor with zero parliamentary experience. "I was not Jack's friend, but I thought that Jack was the better person to lead the party."
Mr. Layton, of course, won. And, in a brilliant move, he persuaded Mr. Broadbent to give up his human-rights work and professorships to make a comeback, this time running in Ottawa Centre. A satirical rap video, Ed's Back, bestowed instant cool and introduced him to a new generation of voters. In June, 2004, he won the riding, his eighth straight electoral victory. Until then, Ottawa Centre had gone Liberal for 15 years.
During the recent election debates, Mr. Layton invoked Mr. Broadbent's name like a mantra. On the winter solstice last week, he even restaged his mentor's previous campaign foray as leader into Yellowknife.
"Ed Broadbent told me what it's like to be in a winter campaign," he said to reporters. "You've got to get on a dogsled, so that's what we're going to do."
Over a green salad and spicy Thai-style mussels at Stoneface Dolly's, his favourite Ottawa bistro, Mr. Broadbent is asked to explain the decline in civility in Parliament.
He says it must be viewed in a context of increasing disrespect for all institutions, including churches, corporations and government itself. "Many MPs have come up in this kind of culture. They personalize debates. Bob Stanfield, Trudeau and I had a lot of intense exchanges. But it was never personal. Now, the political has become personal."
This year, he says, the problem was compounded by the Gomery inquiry because even two prime ministers, one former and one sitting, were hauled before the judge.
The upside is that Canadians are no longer docile. They are skeptical about authority. "And they feel an obligation to speak out about individual rights, about Maher Arar," says Mr. Broadbent, referring to the Canadian tortured in Syria.
The lack of civility, he believes, begins with politicians. He blames Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan for reducing human interaction down to market forces. "That produced in the 1990s a kind of 'me'-ism. A generation of young people was told to look after themselves, to prepare their own pensions and RRSPs."
He has a remedy for youthful cynicism and voter apathy -- mixed-member proportional representation, a mouthful he calls MMPR. If the NDP ends up holding the balance of power in the next government, he says, speaking for both Mr. Layton and his caucus, electoral reform will be "a very high priority."
By MMPR, he means one voter, two votes. You cast one vote for your MP, another for your favourite party. The more votes a party garners, the more seats it gets. Western democracies such as Germany, Finland, Iceland, Scotland, Sweden and New Zealand already use some form of this system.
MMPR would, of course, alleviate the uphill battle the NDP faces in the current first-past-the-post system. Based on the popular vote, right now the NDP, not the Bloc, would have the third-highest number of seats in Parliament.
Asked why the party has never been able to shake its scary, fringe image, Mr. Broadbent takes a sip of red wine. "In North America, it's still the legacy of McCarthyism." He adds that many new Canadians, from former Communist regimes, identify socialism with Stalinism. If he had his way, he would change the NDP's name to the Social Democratic Party, in the liberal-democratic tradition of Sweden's Olof Palme and Germany's Willy Brandt.
But MMPR wouldn't just benefit the NDP. It would foster national unity too. "Preston Manning got 20 per cent of the vote in Ontario, and zip-all seats. People in Western Canada get ticked off with Ontario. But it wasn't Ontario. One out of five voted for him. In 90 per cent of Western democracies, those votes would have counted."
He is convinced that MMPR would also civilize a loutish, testosterone-dominated Parliament. Each party could leaven its lists of candidates -- the ones not running as local MPs -- with as many women as they wanted. "Debates and discussions become more civil."
Mr. Broadbent orders an espresso. When none is available, he settles for Red Rose tea. His visitor asks him to respond to the hoary saying: If you're not a socialist when you're young, you have no heart; if you're still a socialist when you're old, you have no brains.
"I think the first half is true," he says, smiling.
Some think that he might have been prime minister if only he had led another party. Had he ever thought of attaching himself to the Liberals or Conservatives?
He stops smiling. "For me, it's just a non-starter. I am who I am. My first objective was not to have power, but to fight for what I believe in. And have power."
Goodbye, Mr. Decent. Canadians will miss you.
A plea for civility
On May 5, the House of Commons paid tribute to Edward Broadbent. In his speech, he said:
"If members will excuse me, I want to say in this context that I was asked not long ago if during my absence Parliament had changed somewhat, with all the lapses that come with increasing age about accurate memory and the inevitable propensity to romanticize the past.
"When I was elected here, Pierre Elliott Trudeau was Prime Minister of Canada and Bob Stanfield was the leader of the Conservative Party. I am not going to try to sort out the reasons for today, but it is my impression, having been here since the last election, that the tone and substance of debates have in fact changed, as has Question Period.
"I will not attempt any kind of causal analysis of this, but the structure of our Parliament, depending upon our seating, tempts us into thinking all virtue, wisdom and truth lies on the side one happens to be on, and all its opposite qualities happen to be on the other. This does contribute in some way to this kind of institutionalized conflict and causes us to forget many times.
[In French]"I said in the past that, historically, Quebec is the heart of Canada. I am convinced that Bloc Québécois members, my dear colleagues from la belle province, agree with me that, for 75 per cent of the issues, we are on the same side.
[Returning to English]"We share as members of the House -- for 75 per cent of the issues, we are on the same side or we would not be living in a liberal democracy. So often, because of the structure of this institution and particularly Question Period, we forget that. We tend to think that the 25 per cent of issues that divide us, and seriously and appropriately divide us, are only what matters. What is more important in many ways as a civilized, democratic, decent country is the 75 per cent of things we have in common.
"It is a terrible thing to be both a politician and an academic, two terrible professions for wanting to give advice to others. I conclude with this thought. Those who will remain after the next election . . . should give some serious thought to the decline in civility in the debate that has occurred in the House of Commons and which occurs daily in Question Period. If I were a teacher, I would not want to bring high-school students into Question Period any longer.
"There is a difference between personal remarks based on animosity and vigorous debate reflecting big differences of judgment. They should see what can be done in the future to restore to our politics in this nation a civilized tone of debate. A tone of debate [that] in the words of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, acknowledges the human decency and dignity of all other members of the House who recognize this. However we may differ, we are all human and we all have the right to have our inner dignity respected, especially in debate in the House."